Abstract

Surprises happen! While drilling a prospect on the flank of a salt body, you may in fact find that the drill penetrates into the salt. Although every effort may have been made to map the salt face via surface seismic data, this is not always achieved with the needed level of accuracy. Several factors contribute to this uncertainty, including the depth and dip of the salt face, the complexity of the overlying section and how well it can be characterized, poor seismic illumination of the salt flank, the seismic acquisition parameters, the data processing sequence, and the overall quality of the resulting seismic survey.